Need_MindBleach: Even though the war in Iraq was a huge mistake, Saddam was still a huge shiatbag who absolutely deserved to be strung up by the neck. Don't forget this.

Whew! I'm glad to hear we had a GOOD reason to start a farking war. Saddam was a huge shiatbag? Well that changes everything.

Here's a newsflash for you: conservatives don't give a shiat about oppressed people anywhere. The only thing they care about is not being perceived as the irrelevant, heartless, hopeless fark-ups they've repeated demonstrated themselves to be.

Perhaps the next time a bunch of old politicians need to compensate for their non functioning penises, they'll choose to pop a few Viagra instead of bullshiatting us into a war that has cost a huge amount of time, resources and lives.

kyoryu: LavenderWolf: kyoryu: No shiat. Saddam wanted the world to think he had WMDs so that Iran wouldn't fark with him. He was counting on the UN (read: France) to keep us in line.

I thought this was pretty well farking known?

You've got some retard in your brain. Thought you should know.

/FRANCE!
//It controls the world!

That's cute. Do the words "Security Council" mean anything to you?

France was getting cheap oil from Iraq, and they also owed France a ton of money. With their ability to veto any action by the UN, they should have been able to put a stop to any military action.

What they didn't plan on was the US saying "fark you" to the UN. Otherwise, it was a pretty good plan by Saddam... if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

Oh come on.


We have here evidence that France was right in being against military action here.

Do you not see the fking point?

Saddam was never a threat but he was always, always an option.

/Option was taken.

OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

It's considered a WMD by the US, the UN, our allies, and probably our enemies. But you don't consider it a WMD, so I guess everyone else is wrong. My bad.

I'm sorry, I missed the part where I said I was an expert and said everybody else has to do exactly what I think they should do.

You don't have to preface your paragraph with "in my opinion.." for that to be implied. I am saying it therefore it's my opinion.

Gas is destructive to life.

Just a tiny factoid I thought you should be made aware of.
Right. And totally equal to a nuclear device and should be classified on the same level.

/do you know how big a nuke is?
//there doesn't exist gas weapons large enough to fill 1% of the blast of larger bombs.

Just to play devil's advocate, we now have a permanent military presence in the Middle East, with troops in both Iraq and Afganistan. How that's going to work out in the long run, I have no idea, but I'm willing to bet that was one of the major goals in the beginning.

So everything was done out of fear of Iran. RLY?

And we couldn't figure this out 7 years ago before we invaded?

Further proof that the previous administration was absolutely careless, reckless, and not fit to lead a tango, much less a world superpower.

Any room left up in Canada?

/just checking

Fascinating account.

Saddam, a bloodthirsty dictator, comes across as far more of a rational actor than Bush.

Also, Saddam's capable of admitting his mistakes.

/hang 'em both

shivashakti: Saddam WAS our ally. We knew he was gassing Kurds but we were still arming him and giving him funding. Because he was the enemy of Iran and was fighting them.

Up until the invasion of Kuwait, Hussein was 'our guy'. That doesn't make him any better but it does reflect rather poorly on the US.

Everybody was "our" ally. If adventures were anything like adventurism, Frodo would have promised Saruman his help in overthrowing Sauron, allied with Sauron afterwards, signed a non-aggression pact with the dwarves, double crossed Sauron, kept the One Ring for himself, generated a large amount of pipeweed contracts across Middle-Earth for the local Shire growers, and brought Hobbitocracy or at least Hobbit-friendly overlordism to the reaches of Rohan.

inconnu: Boo farking hoo.

Saddam would never have been any kind of a remotely reputable ally. Unless you were Russia or France.

This kind of journalism is irresponsible at best.

Except when he was our reputable ally during the Iran-Iraq war, and our forward base for a lot of the covert ops in Afghanistan. But no, he wouldn't have been a very reputable ally any other time.

Meanwhile your good pals in Saudi Arabia ...Link (new window)

he had them, he didn't have them, he lied about having them

why doesn't someone just post in bold and align the text in the center? how am i supposed to know what to really believe?

The Bushes wanted vengeance for Saddam threatening Dubya's daddy and his boyfriends. Vengeance taken.
Next time let's hope they pay for it out of their own pocket, like Perot.

Deacon Blue: Just to play devil's advocate, we now have a permanent military presence in the Middle East, with troops in both Iraq and Afganistan. How that's going to work out in the long run, I have no idea, but I'm willing to bet that was one of the major goals in the beginning.

Really? No shiat? You figure that out on your own? Yes, that was the entire point.

Don't let's forget that that a certain bunch of neocons concocted the idea of invading Iraq and setting up a puppet government long before Dubya was elected, long before 9/11. Presumably they would have used the WMD pretext no matter what the case. So the only question is, did the neocons consider making a deal with Sadaam, or was he too difficult to bend to their purposes, making a deal with Satan a better choice.

OgreMagi: OgreMagi:

Gas is destructive to life.

Just a tiny factoid I thought you should be made aware of.

OMG!!!! But I'm breathing gas right now! What should I do? What should I do?!?!?!?!?

/Factoid = something oft-repeated as if it were a fact, but in truth is not; a simulated or imaginary fact.
//idiot

Dr. Mojo PhD: Everybody was "our" ally. If adventures were anything like adventurism, Frodo would have promised Saruman his help in overthrowing Sauron, allied with Sauron afterwards, signed a non-aggression pact with the dwarves, double crossed Sauron, kept the One Ring for himself, generated a large amount of pipeweed contracts across Middle-Earth for the local Shire growers, and brought Hobbitocracy or at least Hobbit-friendly overlordism to the reaches of Rohan.

Yeah, until TMZ publishes a pic of Sam arriving at Bag-end with a box of pipe-weed, lembas, and a 12" black rubber cock- forcing Frodo to retire from adventuring.

LavenderWolf: Right. And totally equal to a nuclear device and should be classified on the same level.

/do you know how big a nuke is?

not all nukes are the same size, and I think you are really discounting the potency of chemical warfare. Not only can large areas be affected, but it lingers there for days. Some nukes can obliterate half a continent (or some other large size whatever I don't feel like looking up exactly how big the largest ones are), sure, but that doesn't mean those are the only nukes that cause "mass destruction". The term is really meant in relationship to conventional explosives which can only get so big and don't deliver a continuous threat to life after their initial deployment. Just because there are weapons of mass destruction that cause way more mass destruction, doesn't mean gas doesn't still cause mass destruction.

ragekage: Though I would never have accepted an "alliance" with Saddam Hussein-

It's 5:17 EST here. The sunrise is just starting. The sun seems to be hesitatingat the horizon, though.

I think it's waiting for your approval.

TemperedEdge: So everything was done out of fear of Iran. RLY?

And we couldn't figure this out 7 years ago before we invaded?

The Bush administration knew. We sold Iraq weapons for years because we were scared shiatless of Iran. Donald Rumsfeld was selling weapons to Iraq when he worked for the Reagan administration.

Saddam was a tinpot dictator with several scary enemies at his borders and a population held together with an iron fist. The easiest way to keep that kind of situation under control to to make sure people think you are tougher than you are. You don't admit to the world that you don't have the ability to kick the crap out of the real bastards at your door.

Bush The Lesser was never interested in a peaceful solution to this non-crisis. He was pushing for an invasion of Iraq before 9/11 even happened.

"told you so!"

Sum Dum Gai: We gave Iraq plenty of aid in the '80s.

And the late 70's.

The State Department in 1980 actually arranged for Detroit to give Saddam the key to the city.

Although I suppose if we had to give Saddam the key to a US city, Detroit would be the obvious pick.

LavenderWolf: Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

Typically, I'm not up this early, nor do I have the luxury of reading the ignorant posts from earlier in the day, but this one takes the cake.

Gas weapons are not WMD's?

Wow, the propaganda in our Education System/Mass Media are certainly doing their job.

Ed Grubermann: Saddam was a tinpot dictator with several scary enemies at his borders and a population held together with an iron fist. The easiest way to keep that kind of situation under control to to make sure people think you are tougher than you are. You don't admit to the world that you don't have the ability to kick the crap out of the real bastards at your door.

Which in itself was an insane extension of the already insane Kirkpatrick Doctrine, which was essentially that Our Bloodthirsty Dictator is Better than Your Bloodthirsty Dictator for a Lot of BS PR Reasons but Really Just Because He's OUR Bloodthirsty Dictator.

Christ what a load of shiat the Reagan years were. I wish the asshole could remember he's burning in hell. And I wish I believed in hell just so I could enjoy it.

Kinda crazy stuff.

LavenderWolf: Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

Not that I don't generally agree with the sentiment of the rest of your posts, but are you seriously suggesting that a Neutron Bomb isn't a WMD because it doesn't actually destroy anything?

BigSnatch: So does this make it a false positive? Was Saddam pregnant with WMDs or not?

Haven't you Kurd, it was just gas. Pun Pun Pun Iran away.

Lokix1x: LavenderWolf: Right. And totally equal to a nuclear device and should be classified on the same level.

/do you know how big a nuke is?

not all nukes are the same size, and I think you are really discounting the potency of chemical warfare. Not only can large areas be affected, but it lingers there for days. Some nukes can obliterate half a continent (or some other large size whatever I don't feel like looking up exactly how big the largest ones are), sure, but that doesn't mean those are the only nukes that cause "mass destruction". The term is really meant in relationship to conventional explosives which can only get so big and don't deliver a continuous threat to life after their initial deployment. Just because there are weapons of mass destruction that cause way more mass destruction, doesn't mean gas doesn't still cause mass destruction.

We used to have (probably still do) a tactical artillery nuke, capable of being delivered from a standard 155mm howitzer or similar gun. It was intended for battlefield/anti-tank use, and wouldn't be considered a weapon of "mass" destruction.

Whether or not gas is a "mass" destruction weapon may turn on what type of gas you're referring to. Mustard maybe; chlorine, possibly; nerve, definitely.

Gyrfalcon: We used to have (probably still do) a tactical artillery nuke, capable of being delivered from a standard 155mm howitzer or similar gun. It was intended for battlefield/anti-tank use, and wouldn't be considered a weapon of "mass" destruction.

The Davy Crockett was a man-portable recoilless rifle tactical nuke, no artillery needed. There's also been air-to-air missiles with tactical nuclear warheads, etc.

Mass destruction is about scale and scope, not ingredients. It's easy to associate NBCR with WMDs but that's not necessarily the case. I'd be far more terrified of a massive thermobaric bomb than say the Davy Crockett.

But still, claiming gas is not or cannot be a WMD is more than a little disingenuous.

It's really depressing to remember that Bush was just being an asshole from the beginning and used "terrorism" as an excuse to invade a non-terrorist state (actually created one). I hope the people don't forget this War cause some president will always take advantage by blowing shiat up. Now we gotta make sure Obama ain't crossing any lines in the future. Hard to really tell what's up now.

OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

WMD is a completely bullshiat term.

the ONLY purpose of it is to help conflate simple chemical weapons with nukes and z-virus in the public debate.

Gyrfalcon: inconnu: Boo farking hoo.

Saddam would never have been any kind of a remotely reputable ally. Unless you were Russia or France.

This kind of journalism is irresponsible at best.

Except when he was our reputable ally during the Iran-Iraq war, and our forward base for a lot of the covert ops in Afghanistan. But no, he wouldn't have been a very reputable ally any other time.

Yawn. Yeah. Because geopolitics were like, totally the same during the Cold War as after. It's not like it stopped us from smacking him down when he invaded Kuwait in 1991.

Stupid twit.

Ed Grubermann: Deacon Blue: Just to play devil's advocate, we now have a permanent military presence in the Middle East, with troops in both Iraq and Afganistan. How that's going to work out in the long run, I have no idea, but I'm willing to bet that was one of the major goals in the beginning.

Really? No shiat? You figure that out on your own? Yes, that was the entire point.

I also have this idea about how we support Israel in order to influence events in that region. Seriously, I just didn't see where someone else had pointed the 'American troops now permanently stationed in the Middle East' thing.

On a seperate note, I'm always surprised by people who think real-world international politics are carried out with anything but the most cursory of nods towards morality, and that only for the sake of public consumption. World leaders are influenced by Machiavelli more that by God, Jesus, Buddah, or Mohammad. I'm not sure you could successfully run a country using truly humanitarian principles.

cnstrctvcyncism: he had them, he didn't have them, he lied about having them

why doesn't someone just post in bold and align the text in the center? how am i supposed to know what to really believe?

Do you have a more plausible explanation? Off-hand, the possible scenarios seem to be

1- The article's contention: All non-trivial quantities of proscribed materials, that hadn't been destroyed during the course of the first Gulf War itself, were secretly and thoroughly destroyed under his orders or at least with his awareness and consent. This destruction was to be completely secret (in order to maintain the bluff); this violated the main resolutions, but was judged an acceptable risk. It is not entirely clear whether Saddam ever considered retaining evidence of destruction in case it became "prove they're gone or GTFO", but the failure to produce it in the face of very real threats and the failure of either UNMOVIC or UNSCOM to find clear evidence of this suggests that it wasn't retained.

2- Both UNSCOM and UNMOVIC were completely, utterly wrong and vastly overestimated the quantities of proscribed materials that were imported or produced, and therefore had to be accounted for. The materials weren't hidden or destroyed -- they never existed. This does not seem particularly likely; judging from Blix's writings and the various dossiers and other documents released, the inspectors were quite methodical and not prone to simply inventing numbers.

3- The materials continued to exist, but were extremely well hidden in Iraq. This seems unlikely; to be useful, somebody (presumably military) would have to be able to find them again. One would expect documentation. Also, one would expect that witnesses (somebody had to do the actual hiding) might have mentioned it by now; the probability that everybody with significant knowledge died during the war seems low. If they've been buried so well that nobody can recover them, they pretty much don't exist from a weapons POV and would probably mostly be an environmental issue (groundwater contanimation and the like).

4- The 'moved to [other country, usually Syria] theory': Iraq *did* have large quantities of proscribed materials even after the first Gulf War, but at some point managed to completely evade the inspections regime, occasional satellite or aerial surveillance, and so forth. Noting that Saddam was both rather paranoid and also unpopular, one has to ask whether he would have bothered (in that he might not trust anything to be returned) and whether anybody would have accepted them (in so far as they were a huge hot potato, and the consequences of getting caught with them might have been bad -- and also that nobody in the region was likely to do Saddam favors, anyway).

5. Saddam himself lacked an accurate picture and was the victim of an internal deception operation -- specifically, with overstated claims of procurement and production complete with forged documents and so forth. The motivation for this would be -- if you were working on a project that a frequently homicidal, rather vindictive tyrant considered near and dear to his heart, would you risk disappointing the man? In the face of production difficulties, you might weigh the risks of lying and honesty and decide that the former would be less likely to result in excruciating death. Lies would then have to be built on lies. Of course, this ties into (2); the forgeries and deception operation would have had to have been quite good to fool the inspectors even post-war; in addition, the people who might have done the deceiving don't have Saddam to fear anymore and AFAIK have not claimed to have actually run such a deception operation.


I think that covers all the major scenarios that are consistent with what's known, but of course I could have overlooked something. (1) seems far more probable to me than any of the others.

Lehk: WMD is a completely bullshiat term.

the ONLY purpose of it is to help conflate simple chemical weapons with nukes and z-virus in the public debate.

Actually, no. What chemical, nuclear and biological weapons have in common with each other (but not, say, 122mm HE or 5.45x39) is that they're all indiscriminate, very difficult to control in terms of area affected, and potentially dangerous for non-trivial time. Tabun doesn't exactly vanish instantly, for instance. Thus, they pose significantly more danger to civilians anywhere nearby and are an obvious target for anybody trying to 'humanize' warfare.

Nice knee-jerk reaction, however.

LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

It's considered a WMD by the US, the UN, our allies, and probably our enemies. But you don't consider it a WMD, so I guess everyone else is wrong. My bad.

I'm sorry, I missed the part where I said I was an expert and said everybody else has to do exactly what I think they should do.

You don't have to preface your paragraph with "in my opinion.." for that to be implied. I am saying it therefore it's my opinion.

In my opinion, you are a semantics fag. Or was that implied?

Sergeant Pecker's Lonely Hearts Club Gang Bang:

You said rape rooms twice.


I like rape rooms.

yeah right,,, that would be like telling Pelosi to make sense,, or to stop sucking her teeth.

It's a shame most people have run out of rage for this kind of thing... I met a kid tonight at a bar in Austin, fresh from a tour in Afghanistan, and one thing I can promise you is that he was traumatized. Hit by an IED, barely survived. In his words, "If I had a choice, I'd never do it again. It's going to be just like Vietnam... we'll be there forever. I gotta go back next year." Then I asked him if he was scared, and he said, "I guess not. I don't really believe in a god or anything, but I figure there's some reason I'm here. That IED blew up like 5 feet from me, and I didn't die."

Sorry if this is kind of long-winded, but considering the article and the experience of talking to that kid, I thought it might be appropriate to share. If you've never had a beer with a vet of any war, I recommend it. It adds a lot of perspective people like Sean Hannity lack.

itazurakko: Remember kids, IRAN is the enemy again.

Scary enough to make even Saddam HUSSEIN cower in fear. IRAN.

Saddam was nothing more than a modern day Colonel Klink.

Korovyov: they pose significantly more danger to civilians anywhere nearby and are an obvious target for anybody trying to 'humanize' warfare.

Nice knee-jerk reaction, however.


How many civilians have been unintentionally maimed or killed by poison gas in the last 50 years?

compared to say, US deployed land mines or Israeli cluster bombs.

crab66: The circle of failure is complete.

This....but that being said, at what point do we move on? There are plenty of other issues that need SERIOUS addressing, not 5m people still wanting to string up the Bush Administraion. We'll get nothing done until people open their eyes and realize we're FARK'd for an entirely different/new set of circumstances...well, some are old but hey, let's get cracking!

Why can't people just read UN Resolution 1441 to see what a dick Saddam was.

Lokix1x: LavenderWolf: Right. And totally equal to a nuclear device and should be classified on the same level.

/do you know how big a nuke is?

not all nukes are the same size, and I think you are really discounting the potency of chemical warfare. Not only can large areas be affected, but it lingers there for days. Some nukes can obliterate half a continent (or some other large size whatever I don't feel like looking up exactly how big the largest ones are), sure, but that doesn't mean those are the only nukes that cause "mass destruction". The term is really meant in relationship to conventional explosives which can only get so big and don't deliver a continuous threat to life after their initial deployment. Just because there are weapons of mass destruction that cause way more mass destruction, doesn't mean gas doesn't still cause mass destruction.

Let me put it this way.

The smallest successful nukes will destroy a small city.

The smallest successful gas attack could take out half a city block.

The largest nuke can take out half of north america.

The largest chem weapons can destroy (the population of) a small city.


Kalashinator: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

It's considered a WMD by the US, the UN, our allies, and probably our enemies. But you don't consider it a WMD, so I guess everyone else is wrong. My bad.

I'm sorry, I missed the part where I said I was an expert and said everybody else has to do exactly what I think they should do.

You don't have to preface your paragraph with "in my opinion.." for that to be implied. I am saying it therefore it's my opinion.

In my opinion, you are a semantics fag. Or was that implied?

You're an idiot. I was going off on HIM for getting stuck up about it being my opinion.

crab66: The circle of failure is complete.

No, we still have to blame it on the black guy.

Renowned transvestite sexologist:
...We sure freed the hell out of them.


Agrees (pops)

10.0.0.1: crab66: The circle of failure is complete.

No, we still have to blame it on the black guy.

Well yeah...there's that.

OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

It's considered a WMD by the US, the UN, our allies, and probably our enemies. But you don't consider it a WMD, so I guess everyone else is wrong. My bad.

The entire term "WMD" is bullshiat used to scare everyone. That way they could lump chemical and biological weapons in with nuclear weapons to make them seem just as sinister.

But they is no comparison. Nuclear weapons are on an entirely different level.

The absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

We are just going to have to accept that there are some unknown unknowns.

Gen. Apathy: OgreMagi: LavenderWolf: OgreMagi: Saddam used gas on the Kurds. Gas is a WMD. He didn't just farking make it up.

Gas is not a weapon of mass destruction.

It doesn't destroy anything. Weapon of mass poisoning? Sure. I'll take that. Destruction? No.

It's considered a WMD by the US, the UN, our allies, and probably our enemies. But you don't consider it a WMD, so I guess everyone else is wrong. My bad.

The entire term "WMD" is bullshiat used to scare everyone. That way they could lump chemical and biological weapons in with nuclear weapons to make them seem just as sinister.

But they is no comparison. Nuclear weapons are on an entirely different level.

Hey gas is even better. Kill everyone leaving the infrastructure mostly intact. Then you can just bring out the soylent green trucks, spray some Lysol and move right in.

read most posts with Dennis Miller in my head doing the one-liners, cha-cha.